Trend Watch: Interrupting Speeches

As professionally trained mainstream media journalists, we all know the saying “three makes a trend” is more than a favored cliche used by editors of a certain era.

It’s a certifiable cultural truth.

And just as celebrities die in threes–more recent evidence to feed the maxim: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon–we here at Trend Watch have developed a new and improved technique for spotting trends-in-the-making: Twos.

Kanye biting on Rep. Joe Wilson’s style.

This week, an undeniable trend-in-waiting reared its head: Interrputing speeches. First it was Rep. Joe Wilson going all “You lie!” on President Obama. Then it was Kanye West going all “Look at me I’m crazy!” during Taylor Swift’s moment.

But before interrupting a speech can become a bona fide symbol of the times we live in, it needs a third occurrence–an Ed McMahon death, if you will–to drive home the theme that civil discourse is in decline.